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Inverted colonialism

Manuel E. Yepe

Ironies of geography, politics and history! The global map of
colonialism has been turned upside down so that the European powers,
which until a few centuries ago exercised dominion over the American
nations, today behave as servile subjects of American power and obey its
empire.

Carrying out an order from Washington, the authorities in France, Italy,
Spain and Portugal forbade the presidential airplane of Bolivian leader
Evo Morales to overfly their territory en route home to Bolivia after
an official visit to Russia where Evo attended a summit of gas-producing
countries.

To make their genuflection was even more humiliating, suffice it to say
that what motivated the U.S. order to the Europeans was an attempt to
capture Edward Snowden, the former agent of the CIA and National
Security Agency (NSA), author of public disclosures about espionage
operations performed systematically by Washington against its European
allies, whom they wrongly assumed was traveling with the Bolivian
president.

When the plane that transported Morales was a few kilometers from the
French border, the authorities in Paris - who several days before had
given the authorization requested in keeping with aeronautical standards
and international diplomacy- canceled permission to fly over its
territory, obeying U.S. orders and forcing the presidential aircraft to
perform an emergency landing in Austria because it lacked enough fuel
for an alternative route. "What we have had is a presidential plane
circling about while the countries in the area denied it permission to
land," said the Bolivian Minister of Communications, Amanda Davila.

"In an emergency situation any commercial plane can land at the nearest
airport, but this time they did not allow the plane to land and forced
the President to risk his life and return to a place ..." she said.

With such a performance, unprecedented in postwar times, Europe violated
provisions and rules of international law, endangered the life of the
Bolivian president, and could have created a crisis of extreme gravity
with unpredictable repercussions for the security of European diplomats
worldwide.

Edward Snowden, with his revelations about the espionage the U.S. has
practiced on several European Union countries, had rendered a valuable
service to the peoples of Europe whose governments -upon the publicizing
of the trampling over their sovereignty- were forced to take a public
stand censuring Washington, condemning the denounced facts, and
demanding respect for their sovereignty.

The official actions of these European governments in the case of the
ban on the Bolivian presidential aircraft flyover clearly showed the
hypocrisy that lay beneath their earlier pronouncements.

Some other European countries not included in the planned route for the
presidential flight, such as Italy, were apparently contacted by the
U.S. to prevent possible alternatives to the presidential flight, and,
obeying the order from Washington, hastened to communicate their
willingness to prohibit the landing or flyover.

On June 27, President Obama said at a press conference in Senegal, where
he was visiting as part of his tour of Africa, that he would not
"scramble jets" or poison relations with China or Russia to capture
Edward Snowden. "If he leaves the international transit area in the
Moscow airport where he's hiding, we will not try to intercept him. I
will not be scrambling jets to catch a 29-year-old hacker," he said.

However, less than a week later, we saw the action of the U.S.
intelligence agencies that could have cost the life of the Bolivian head
of state. So far, Washington has not even apologized to President Evo
Morales, or to those European dignitaries who were compelled to play
such a subservient and ridiculous role in front of their own peoples.

The fact that Washington has been revealed to be so obstinately
interested in capturing Edward Snowden, without having been able to show
public opinion anything to smooth down the disrespectful and
treacherous behavior of the superpower toward its own allies, speaks to
the actual behavior of the empire concerning its respect for the human
rights of its own citizens, and is, therefore, a strong argument in
favor of the legitimacy of Edward Snowden´s request for political
asylum.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Excellent article, however, just as a slight correction, Evo's plane was not a "few" kilometers from the French border, but a couple hundred kms...There was still half of Austria and all of Switzerland in between... (or alternatively, the whole width of Germany, had the plane chosen to fly over Germany...)

Anonymous forgets that a couple hundreds kms in an airplane is just minutes away flying in a jet.Also forgets, mentioning other countries, that these countries literally do not exists as alternatives since flight itineraries are plotted well in advance.. with minutes before arriving to an unfriendly sky it is obvious it was an emergency landing caused by a criminal action of these countries closing their recanting their permission to fly over.

My comment earlier was not meant as criticism... I am in full agreement of everything else what was posted...and I fully agree that it was an emergency landing and a criminal action on behalf of the countries who denied the plance carrying Evo Morales the entry into their respective air spaces...

Yes, a couple hundred kilometers does go fast in a jet, however, the place where Evo's plane started to turn back to Vienna, was still about 470 km from the French Border, so there would have been perhaps 45 minutes of flying time left...

all I wanted to say, without getting into any arguments, is that a couple kms is different from 470...perhaps the best wording to be used would have been (with less than an hour before entering French air space...)

and yes, flight plans are made well in advance, i just wanted to point Germany out as an emergency plan...surely in such a situation, heads of states would brainstorm both ideas of either changing the route as an emergency measure, or make an emergency landing...no?